If your mutual funds own newspaper stock, you may have a problem

self, moneycentral.msn.com | 18 March 2006 | Grampa Dave

[Grampa Dave]

To Jim Robinson, admin moderator, please excuse this vanity.

This is the only way of warning Freepers that their mutual funds may be invested in stocks of our enemies and real potential losers, the stocks of the lying, spinning and probable dinosaur fishwraps or newspapers.

Since, GW was re elected, the stock values of many of the major lying/spinning fishwraps have been falling like a rock dropped in a ocean.

This past week has been a very bad week for many newspaper stocks with the reports of less subscribers and the NYT and TRB may have their bond rating lowered by Moody's.

Most Freepers would never knowingly invest in the stock of these left wing enemies. However, many of these left wing fishwraps appear to massively owned by institutions and mutual funds. These mutual funds are probably holding up the value of the Enron type newspapers with the precious $'s from their investors.

Often these mutual funds are in our IRAs or 401K's or similiar deferred savings or in college funds for our children and grandchildren. Investing in these dinosaurs probably presents a clear present danger to our precious investment $s.

The links below will take us to MSN's money central for NYT, TRB and WPO, the NY Slimes, LA Slimes/Chicago Tribune and Compost. Once there you can see the institutional and mutual fund ownership of each dinosaur fishwrap.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/ownership/ownership.asp?Symbol=nyt

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/ownership/ownership.asp?Symbol=trb

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/ownership/ownership.asp?Symbol=WPO

The above links will work for any company, just delete the 3 letter stock symbol at the end and enter the stock code for the stock/stocks you are interested in.

[Grampa Dave]

"Interesting thread. I had no idea that mutual funds had invested in formerly renowned news businesses."

Their massive ownership via institutions, mutual funds, investment firms and pension funds may explain why they are so arrogant about poing 62 million potential readers, subscribers and advertisers.

[Grampa Dave]

"I kinda like animal experiment labs and mink farms too."

Define "mink".

On second thought, please don't.

[spanalot]

I never thought that I would live to see the day that these
leftist baffoons would die a slow, lingering death.

I'm in small caps - up 20% in 10 mos and getting ready to go short unless oil continues its death spiral.

Go Nukes!

[ASA Vet]

Ah, you know me to well....haha

[trashcanbred]

Anyone that invests in mutual funds BETTER have a pretty good idea where that fund invests its money. The last thing a mutual fund investor wants to have is extensive overlap in each funds' holdings.

I susbscribe to the Morningstar website and use their "x-ray" tools. They will break down the mutual fund investments for you in great detail. You can determine what companies or what industries you are investing in (and if it is foreign or local, etc...).

[Grampa Dave]

Go for it, if you think that it is good buy! I don't invest in cr$p.

[trashcanbred]

It looks like VICEX has gone up from 99.50 to 109.5 in the last 4 months. 9% in 4 months not too bad.

[ASA Vet]

It's hard for me to do so, but I'll shift into serious mode for a bit.
My only investments are via the Government TSP. There are basically 5 places to have "shares."

G fund which is special issued US government bonds which have a fairly low but safe rate of return. Usually slightly better than inflation.

F fund which is financial instruments of some sort. This always seems to be a loser.

S fund which tracks the S&P 500.

C fund which is small caps.

I fund which is international stocks.

Currently the largest return is in the I fund followed by the C fund and then the S fund.
I'm 100% in the I fund now.

/ serious mode (that was painful.)

[groanup]

LOL. Those numbers aren't crap.

[krb]

Private Capital Management [naples] 20,711,612 -1,020,821 -5.0 -98,717,744 

Looks like those guys have lost almost $100,000,000 on that investment. Am I reading that correctly?

[groanup]

a thread for the ages

[Toddsterpatriot]

Am I reading that correctly?

No. They had 20,711,612 shares. They sold 1,020,821 which was 5% of their holding of NYT. They have $98,717,744 less of the NYT stock than they did during the last reporting period.

[krb]

Thanks for explaining that to me.

[Old_Mil]

I suspect that the internet will end up being to newspapers what the digital camera was to 35mm film.

[BIGLOOK]

Boing!

[ovs.in.texas]

The S&P 500 index has several news organization in it, including Dow Jones (DJ), Gannett (GCI), New York Times (NYT), Tribune (TRB), Knight-Ridder (KRI), and EW Scripps (SSP).

If you have shares in any S&P 500 index you effectively own shares in these corporations.

While the stock price of many news organizations is declining, the S&P 500 index is up about 4.7% so far this year.

As specific news organizations become less and less viable (and therefore smaller and smaller in terms of market cap) they will likely be removed from the S&P 500.

One scenario is acquisition and divestment like the current McClatchy situation.

[Grampa Dave]

Exactly.

That is why the S&P funds show ownership in many of these funds like the Vanguard S&P 500 fund.

However, with the valuation drops that many of these stocks have had in two years, the big question should S&P replace some of them with their regular changes in what makes up the S&P 500.

[BIGLOOK]

Good thread, Dave!

Thanks for the links....saved me time perusing prospectus.

I recommend Washington Mutual Investors Fund; bought in at a post 9/11 low and gained steadily.

[Grampa Dave]

One of my ETF investments is MDY which is the middle cap index fund, which is the class in which many of these fishwrap stocks are/were in. The chart below shows how much better MDY has done versus the lying fishwrap losers:

[Grampa Dave]

"I suspect that the internet will end up being to newspapers what the digital camera was to 35mm film."

You are probably correct. We have been two events where professional photographers used digital cameras plus our recent photos for our church directory.